


You Do It To Yourself

by metaphasia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Not Your Typical Soulbond AU, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Soul Bond, Soulbond AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:41:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23303341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphasia/pseuds/metaphasia
Summary: “Whatever you're thinking, it's not like that at all, Ginny,” Hermione stated. “I – oh blast it, if I start from when the bond actually happened, it won't make any sense, I'll be telling it all out of order. Let me start at the beginning, Ginny, and please, just wait until you hear the whole story before you come to any conclusions.”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 36
Kudos: 339





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Ginny noticed was at dinner. After the final battle, the first few months had been hectic. Between rebuilding Hogwarts physically, and rebuilding the Ministry logistically, between all the hospital visits for the living, and the funerals for the dead, her whole family had been kept beyond busy with helping everyone. Still, her mother insisted that everyone gather at least once a week for Sunday night dinners, and no one was willing to argue with Molly Weasley on that point.

It started, of all things, with the pepper. Ginny had been sitting next to Hermione, the two of them talking, and on Hermione's other side, Harry was likewise deep in conversation with Ron. Hermione had reached down for a bite of food while Ginny was mid sentence, and had grimaced slightly. Without even a moment's hesitation, Harry had reached out in front of him, grabbed the pepper and passed it back to Hermione, who reached behind her to accept it and season her food while still listening to Ginny's story.

When Hermione began speaking, Ginny contemplated what she had just witnessed. None of it was unusual, except for the fact that Harry and Hermione had been facing away from each other; there was no way Harry could have seen her face to realize she wanted anything to flavor her food, let alone what, and Hermione had said nothing to let him know what it was she was looking for. Ginny had noticed the two of them had been much more in sync since the end of the war, and had been a lot better at anticipating each other's needs. However, this was a step beyond what she had seen before – it was something beyond the reach of reality without the involvement of magic.

After dinner was over, everyone had spread out through the ground floor to relax. Ginny had stayed in the kitchen to help her mom with the dishes, and Harry had stayed as well. He had finally worn Molly down into accepting his help with cooking and cleaning after meals, by insisting it wasn't fair for her to have to do all the work in the kitchen, and that he couldn't be both a guest in their home and therefore immune from chores, and also part of the family. She had reluctantly accepted at the suggestion that Harry might worry that he was not family. As she finished drying the last plate, Ginny walked back into the living room. Hermione and Ron had been deep in conversation, sitting in two of the armchairs over in the corner, but when she walked in, Hermione looked up at her, and quickly excused herself.

“Hey Ginny,” she said, approaching the younger girl, and hesitated for a moment.

“Can we talk?” Ginny asked, and Hermione nodded.

“Let's take a walk outside,” Hermione said, and they headed to the front door. Ginny paused to grab a jacket, as Hermione held the door for her.

The sun was hanging low in the sky, and the late summer heat was beginning to dissipate. Ginny shivered slightly despite the canvas jacket she was wearing, while Hermione didn't seem to notice the cold at all beneath just the grey henley she was wearing. They started walking in silence towards the ward boundary behind the orchard, Hermione's boots making a quiet crunching on the pebbles of the path to the edge of the property.

“What's going on, Hermione?” Ginny finally worked up the nerve to ask. “There's clearly something happening between you and Harry.”

“I thought you noticed something when we were talking at dinner. What was it?” Hermione asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“He passed you the pepper,” Ginny said, and before she could finish explaining, Hermione was already nodding along.

“And I didn't ask for it. Of course. Well, we were planning on telling you soon anyway, it's just ...” and Hermione trailed off for a moment. “It's difficult to explain. Both what happened to us, and also how. And also because of the history we all have.”

By that time, they had reached the edge of the property line, and started walking clockwise along the edge of the grass, long habit from the war keeping them just inside the wards.

“The fact is that, well, that we're ...” and again Hermione paused, seeming to search for the right words. “Well, we're soul bonded.”

“You're soul bonded?!” Ginny was barely able to restrain herself from shrieking, only the necessity of trying to keep their conversation private muting the volume of her words.

“Oh no, Ginny -” Hermione began, but didn't have a chance to finish before she got cut off.

“When? Wha – How? When?” Ginny spitballed her questions so fast Hermione didn't have a chance to even begin to respond. “Those are supposed to be extremely rare, how did -”

Hermione finally cut Ginny off, chopping her arm in front of her before folding her arms across her chest, finally shivering slightly in her long sleeved shirt – either from the growing chill in the air, or from the topic of their conversation, Ginny couldn't tell.

“Whatever you're thinking, it's not like that at all, Ginny,” Hermione stated. “I – oh blast it, if I start from when the bond actually happened, it won't make any sense, I'll be telling it all out of order. Let me start at the beginning, Ginny, and please, just wait until you hear the whole story before you come to any conclusions.”

The redheaded girl nodded her assent, and the two continued walking through the grass, heading towards the garden behind the house. After a moment to gather her thoughts, Hermione began telling the story in detail.

“I suppose, if I'm going to tell the story right, that I should start in first year. Our first year, Ginny, before you got to Hogwarts. Harry had gotten his invisibility cloak for Christmas, and decided to use it to explore the castle after dark. I didn't find out he had gotten it, let alone went exploring with it, until later – I wasn't even at Hogwarts at the time – but on his first late night excursion, he decided to check the Restricted Section for information on – oh, it doesn't even matter what it was anymore - Flamel, and the Stone. Unfortunately, the first book he picked up started shrieking and wailing when it was opened due to the wards on the Section, alerting Filch, and he had to leave right after. When he told me about the incident later, after I got back to school, it planted a seed in my mind.”

“Then, in our third year – your second – I had access to a Time Turner for most of the year. I used it to attend all of my classes, obviously, but I was also using it for other things. There just wasn't enough time in the day to do all of the studying and homework and revising I needed to do on top of attending classes, so I began Turning for that work as well. And then I was putting so many extra hours into each day, it began wearing at me, making me more irritable than normal, so I had to start Turning to get some extra sleep to balance out the ratio of how much time I was spending awake. And, well, I borrowed Harry's cloak for most of the year – at first so that I could do some work in the Library without anyone noticing there were two of me there, then as my schedule got more and more away from normal hours, to sleep in the Dorm during the day without the other girls noticing I was in bed at odd hours while everyone else was heading out to class, and to start studying in the Library after curfew. And that, finally, was when I started using his cloak and the Time Turner to start peeking in the Restricted Section. I had already been in there the year before – technically, no one had ever revoked the unlimited pass that Lockhart had given me, so the wards never triggered when I was reading in there after hours."

"I wasn't able to learn most of the spells I found, but it was a major development for me. All of the magic we were being taught in classes was, hmm, easy," Hermione said, gesturing negation with her hand to counteract the words she uttered. "I don't mean to brag - but learning the spells that we were supposed to be just wasn't a challenge, intellectually. Sure, my physical coordination sometimes needed extra practice, especially when I was younger, with the more complicated motions, and there were plenty of spells I just didn't have the energy to cast ahead of when we were supposed to learn them. But the memorization, and learning? That part I never had any problems with. In those nights, I found books on magical theory, spellcrafting, and the philosophy behind magic. All topics that I not only craved to learn about, but that were more engaging for me. On top of that, the spells in the Restricted Section ..."

Hermione hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Some of them are there certainly, because they are dark magic. Some, because they are too complicated, or powerful, to let just everyone learn. Polyjuice is in the Restricted Section; it isn't inherently evil, but it's not something you want just any teenage student knowing how to make. Others were there because they were dangerous - not to those they were being used on, we all learned plenty of curses, hexes, and jinxes, after all - but to those casting them."

"Some of the more interesting and outlandish philosophy and theory books were in there too," Hermione said, and she sighed. "As I went through, I began to see common threads between books. Spells that could have interesting interactions, theories from two separate books and authors and eras of history that could combine to lead to new discoveries. So ... I began to take notes."

Ginny couldn't help the slight chuckle that came out at the older girl's dramatic way of revealing that fact.

"I know! I know, laugh at Hermione, taking notes," she said, chuckling at herself as well. "But I wrote down as much as I could, filled several books worth of notes. By the end of the year, especially after I dropped Divination, my time balance had shifted - I was spending more time in the library after curfew, under the Invisibility Cloak, taking notes, than I was anywhere else. And that includes sleeping in my bed in the dorm through the night, whilst being in the library at the same time. I was doubling, tripling up there."

_Hermione reflexively checked the time as she felt rather a presence approaching her table in the library. With how much she was looping time in upon itself these days, it was important to make sure that she interacted with others in chronological order so that no one would learn about the artifact she had been entrusted with. She relaxed as she realized it was Harry sliding into the seat next to hers. He waited for her to finish what she was working on and acknowledge her presence, a fact that she was extremely grateful for. She had been working at a breakneck pace the last few days, and knowing where to pick back up when she resumed would save her precious time. As she finished noting down her current topic, she looked up at him._

“ _Can we talk,” Harry quietly asked her, careful to respect the library's silence._

“ _Of course,” Hermione said, and, with a brief regretful glance, she placed her quill inside the page she was working on in her notebook as a temporary bookmark, and then in turn used her notebook to mark the page of the book she had been copying a spell out of, pushing it towards the center of the table, signalling to Harry that he had her full attention._

“ _I'm not an idiot, Hermione,” Harry said, and she felt her eyebrows furrow as she wondered why he would possibly think she thought that. “I'm not near as smart as you, but – I'm not dumb, Hermione.”_

“ _Of course not, Harry,” She found herself reassuring him naturally, before he gestured with one hand to let him continue._

“ _I know something's going on,” He continued, and Hermione felt herself pale. “You've been taking three classes at the same time, and never missing any of the actual class periods for any of them apparently. You're keeping up with a higher workload than anyone else in the castle – and that's before factoring in your usual standard of quality. You're in the library at every hour – not just 'a lot', like you normally are, but always.”_

_Hermione quickly glanced around, making sure no one was in earshot despite the near whisper he had been speaking in._

“ _Harry - I - ” Hermione tried to begin a sentence repeatedly, unsure what to say, what she could say. Harry reached across the table, grabbing her hand in his, and then began to speak again._

“ _I know Ron has been trying to figure out what your secret is, but I haven't tried myself. Because … Well, like I said, I'm not an idiot. There's only so many things that could be the answer for how you're able to be in more than one place at a time.”_

“ _Harry, you can't -” Hermione tried to warn him, but found the words caught in her throat. “I – I can't tell you - You can't.”_

_She wasn't able to utter anything more; how Professor McGonagall had vouched for her personally with the Ministry at great risk to her reputation, to both of their reputations, it had all stilled her tongue since the summer, stifling her first impulse to share what was an incredibly exciting event with her friends. Hermione found now that she couldn't say anything either way; not willing to confirm what Harry was telling her, but not able to lie to her best friend either. Luckily, it seemed that Harry somehow sensed the struggle within her, because he just smiled and continued speaking._

“ _I haven't asked you what's going on, because I thought if you weren't telling me, you had a good reason. I wouldn't have brought it up now, but you've been looking more and more stressed out lately. I thought it might have been because of our fight earlier, I thought it might have been because of your course load. But we made up months ago, and you dropped Divination, but you don't look like you're getting better; if anything you look more out of it now than you did at the beginning of the year. I don't know why you're not telling me whatever it is. I know … I know I haven't been the best of friends to you this year, the friend you deserve. But I'm here if you need to talk about it.”_

_Hermione felt herself convulse at his words. How could he think he wasn't an amazing friend to her? Despite her promises to Professor McGonagall, Hermione found she had to say something in the face of his self doubt._

“ _Harry, I'm not allowed to say anything. You can't know. I would have told you if I could - I would tell you everything if I could. But it's only because I'm not allowed to say anything. You're wrong – you are my best friend, the best possible friend I could ask for.”_

_At her final words, despite how quiet they had been speaking, the silence between them seemed deeper, more charged._

“ _Alright,” Harry eventually said. “But I'm here if you can talk about it. Or if you need anything.”_

_With those last words, he released her hand and pulled his homework out of his bag, giving her a moment to process. It was most likely the stress of how much she had been Turning time lately that had caused her to be so emotional and open with Harry. She pulled her work back in front of her, but despite opening the books, she found her mind still on the conversation they had just had. Was Harry right? Had she been getting more stressed lately? As she struggled to think back over the past week, she realized that she had lost all sense of time. She had been spending days at a time for every sunrise and set. She could cut back a little on using it so much; at this point, she didn't really need it for her school work at all, and had merely been doing personal research. She should cut back, now that she thought about it. Harry was right that she had been getting more stressed as the year went on and her usage of the Turner increased. But for now, there was still another chapter left in this book she wanted to look at. With one final glance over at Harry, she resumed her work. She was truly lucky to have a friend like him._

They reached a corner of the property, and continued their walking. Hermione's face turned pallid as she then spoke her next words.

"It was probably a good thing I didn't have access to the Turner after that year. I had become addicted to time. I'm no longer sure when my birthday technically should be, exactly - the time I spent petrified in the Hospital Wing in my second year is easy enough to calculate, but it was certainly more than cancelled out by the time that I Turned over the course of my third. I … I lost count of how many hours, how many twists I made. I became months younger at the end of second year than I would have been otherwise, only to then become even older than I would have been before anything started, and I don't know by how much. It's ... terrifying, actually."

"Our fourth and fifth years, we were really just too focused on the tasks at hand to really do any independent research. First keeping Harry alive through the tournament, and then skirting around Umbridge to run the DA and to find all the information we needed for it ate up all our time. For both of us. But although I was too busy to do any other personal research, we still came across things that were, hmm, useful but not applicable. Advanced shield variants that had various advantages and drawbacks, but weren't worth teaching because they were edge cases. Dozens of curses and hexes, that we had never seen before, that wouldn't be widely known and would therefore be harder to block - but that were much more complicated to cast. Utility spells that would prove useful when on the run or hiding out, but that wouldn't be any use in a hedge maze, or when locked in an arena with a dragon. We both are very good, were good even then, at thinking outside the box, finding uses for spells that are off-label, but the problems we faced were so narrow in scope. If Harry couldn't get past the dragon, survive underwater for an hour, survive whatever horrors they put in the maze, nothing else really mattered. A dragon is a large wall, an obstacle that must be overcome. Yes, there are some tricky ways around one to avoid them in the first place, but it is still a threat that must be honored when you have to get through one."

"When we were running the DA, we had to teach to the tests - OWLs, mostly, but there were a few older students there that were working on their NEWTs, if you remember. Those spells formed the core of our curriculum, and after that, any time we had left over for teaching was focused on rounding out everyone's knowledge. We had to find spells that everyone could learn, and the easier the better, as it would mean both that the younger students would have a chance to learn them, and also that we could fit more lessons in. We also tried to focus on large, salient threats that we knew were waiting out there - the Patronus Charm was a priority for us, for instance, since we knew the Dementors would involve themselves in the war at some point. We couldn't afford to waste weeks learning esoteric spells that would only see niche use, or that represented marginal upgrades over more generic ones. Due to the unevenness of education at Hogwarts when it came to Defense, we had to make sure that students of all age groups, and with different Professors for each year, had a common general knowledge base. Something that would carry them through their exams - and more importantly, leave them well rounded enough that they could survive what we both knew was coming."

_Hermione flipped through the book in front of her frantically. Normally one to read carefully, she instead sped through page after page, barely taking in a vague sense of what she was looking at before moving on. She preferred to read carefully; never skipping ahead, reading entire sections, chapters, at a time. However, she was on a deadline. Harry had only a week left before he had to compete in the Second Task, and she needed to find a spell to help him breathe underwater. She had already torn through three books, in just this study session alone, and wanted to get through both this current book she was reading on hydromancy and at least one more before she had to leave for class. While other students were revising their essays due today, she was taking advantage of the one hour break between classes to push a little farther ahead with her research, try to find a way to keep her best friend alive._

_Well, she corrected herself, not her research;_ their  _research. She flicked her eyes up briefly, only sparing a moment from her skimming, to look at Harry sitting across from her. He was also pouring his all into this Tournament. While getting him to do his work early wasn't easy, it also wasn't the all consuming struggle that dealing with Ron's lackadaisical attitude towards homework constituted. However, he had stepped up in a big way, and was putting just as many hours into this project as she was. Considering the only purpose of her current library time was to keep him alive, she would have hoped he would be as enthusiastic as her, but he wasn't just present, he was really trying, putting in actual effort. It simultaneously made her heart swell with pride at his pushing his boundaries and academic ability, and tear her hair out with frustration at how much better he could do in their usual daily work if he would put the same effort in._

_A spell to purify water for drinking. A spell to conjure water. A spell to make water clearer for better visibility. A spell to change the color of water._

_None of these were what she needed. Wait. That second to last one, improving visibility underwater. It wasn't the solution to their most pressing problem, finding a way for Harry to breathe underwater and not drown, but it might just come in useful for navigation and, more importantly, combat underwater. After the First Task, she was assuming that anything involved with this Tournament was going to involve deadly peril._

_Quickly glancing up at the clock, and evaluating how much time she still had left in their break period against how much she had already processed, and still had to go, she came to a decision. Breaking out one of her notebooks, she quickly started jotting down the wand motions and incantation for the charm, in case they had free time later to teach it to Harry, once they had triaged the situation._

_Harry glanced up at her change in routine, but, at her head shake of negation, he immediately resumed his own search. He could have been slacking off, or taking breaks, or trying to find some shortcut, but instead, he was finally matching her pace and keeping up with her. The joy that filled her at his diligence made her redouble her own efforts, eager to find a way out for him._

"Still, despite all of our focus being on other pursuits, we did come across spells that were too useful to just ignore. If we had any free time when we did, I would copy them across to the notebooks I was compiling. If we didn't, I would at least note what we found and where. Every few months, when things died down temporarily – either right after one of the Tasks in the Tournament finished or when Umbridge was regrouping to try a new approach, a few rare other times - I would take my list of book titles and page numbers and spell names, and spend whatever time I could copying as many over as possible."

"In our sixth year - Harry and I that is - Dumbledore started to teach Harry what a Horcrux was, and what Riddle specifically had likely used. As Harry learned, he shared what he was taught with me - well, and Ron, also - and I started scouring the library for anything I could find that might have more information. The Headmaster had already gone through and pulled every book he could find that referenced the topic of Horcruces out of the library, afraid someone might follow in Riddle's footsteps. When I approached him, however, he was willing to let me study those books - under close supervision, mind. With those as a starting point, I was able to learn more about the magic that went into a Horcrux - how they functioned, how to identify them. How to destroy them. I turned my time in the library to learning about magic that affects the soul more generally."

"Despite the, hmm," Hermione stalled for a moment, searching for the right word. "Interpersonal conflicts and drama that sprang up, it was a relatively quiet year. I spent a good part of sixth year working on enchanting an artifact - one of two that I've made. The second, you've already seen - my bag, the beaded one? It turns out that claudications and emboîtement are some of the harder magics to work. You can certainly buy such items without excessive difficulty - but they are crafted with basic, generic versions of the magic involved. Tents that are larger on the inside are, well, pricey, but still fairly easy to come by. However, they all function the same way. Any sort of customized or bespoke version that you might hope to obtain and you are pretty much forced to craft it yourself. The bag was exceedingly difficult work, and took me a good chunk of the summer after sixth year. But it was my first project that gave me the practical experience and confidence with those magics to even attempt it. That first project I worked on, was a book."

Again, Ginny couldn't resist herself from chuckling slightly at Hermione's predictability, and the older girl smiled along as well.

"Oh, go ahead, laugh. Of course the first thing I made was a book. But it was only practical. My collection of notebooks was starting to get excessive, and the older ones were showing significant wear. I enchanted the book I made to be durable - to resist damage and destruction, whether being ripped apart, set on fire, or just exposed to water and the elements. I made it able to hold more information than just the number of pages inside, of course. And I added in some basic divination rune work, to allow it to aide the reader in flipping to exactly the right page. As well as ... a few other tricks. If we had had half the adventures that year that we had had any other, I never would have been able to finish it in time."

"After that, the hardest part was filling it. Every spell I had noted down previously, but never found the time to copy over before went in first. Everything I had copied over into my various notebooks the previous years went in as well - all the spells that we hadn't been able to teach in the DA, all the spells that weren't going to help Harry in the Tournament, everything I had pulled from the Restricted Section during my late night excursions. All the information that I was able to get about Horcruces - whatever Dumbledore let me copy out of his private library. All the information about soul magic in general that I spent my time researching that year. And then, as the end of Spring approached, I began to truly raid the Hogwarts library. I'm not sure why - if I knew, on some instinctual, magical, level that we wouldn't be returning the next year, or if it was my own perfectionist nature. But I began to pull anything and everything in the library I could find that contained actual spells, or information even vaguely relating to our situation. I tasked Harry and Ron with combing through books for me whenever I could. In the end ... I suppose, given that we won the war, that we survived, that it was enough. At the time, however, it never felt like enough. But that year, when we got on the train, I had my magnum opus, my grand grimoire."

As she finished speaking, Hermione reached into the back pocket of her jeans and removed a book, a book that couldn't possibly have fit inside without the aid of magic. It was about twice the size of her hands in both directions, and just thick enough to have heft, and be comfortable to hold by the edge, without being so large it was unwieldy. Hermione waggled it in Ginny's direction, before returning it to her pocket, the older girl speaking as she did so.

"And that was when everything changed."


	2. Chapter 2

The two girls continued their walk around the outside of the Burrow. By this point in Hermione's story, the sun had fallen below the horizon, and the last light of the day was slowly draining through the red of dusk. Hermione still seemed oblivious to the cold that was setting in fully now, and Ginny remembered how Hermione had once told her that after their time spent in the Forest of Dean the previous winter, she no longer really felt the cold.

"Hermione," Ginny said, confused at the direction her story had taken. "All of this is fascinating, but it's not actually answering anything. All these stories about what you and Harry were doing during your free time at Hogwarts, it doesn't have anything to do with soul bonds. All you've been talking about is studying in secret, and making a spellbook, not - not true love, and romance, and secret rendezvous-es, or anything. What happened between you two, really? How did you get from friends to soul bonded?"

"Ginny," Hermione said, exasperated at last. "It's not like what you're thinking of, not at all."

"Really," the younger girl said, sarcasm laced heavily through her tone. "And why not?"

"Because!" Hermione exclaimed, the single word seeming to serve as an entire explanation by itself. She paused for a moment before voicing the reason. "It's not something that just happened to us. We did it to ourselves."

“After Ron left, we were devastated,” Hermione said, slowly gathering steam after her previous outburst. “Neither of us wanted to do ... well, anything really. I sat and just cried for an entire day. I don't know, had things gone differently, if Ron and I would be together right now, or whether even if we were together now, if we would have lasted forever. But his leaving was ruinous, and not just for any chance of our fledgling relationship. I don't know exactly how to explain it to you. At the time, it felt like we could do anything. With the three of us, we were invincible. When one of us faltered, the other two would pick them up. There was always a backup, a fail safe, in case something went wrong, the others would pick up the slack.”

“But without Ron, it felt as if we lost our margin of safety. Despite the difference being only one person being gone, it felt as if were something to happen to one of us, it would be the end of everything. I guess the best way to explain that sense of despair is as if we suddenly felt that all our eggs had wound up in one basket. The last few months, I've spent a lot of time working on finding names for obscure emotions, I have had to, but I can tell you that there are so many that just don't have a name, no matter how obscure, in any language, because they are things that most people never need to communicate to one another. I've had to resort to describing things in metaphors. Harry's solution is just to make up new words. But that loss we felt when Ron left us – it was a crippling blow.”

“I cried for a full day,” Hermione repeated, getting herself back on track. “That evening that he left, and the entire next day, I was useless, completely. But the morning after that, I made a decision. I needed to get up, do something, find a way for us to still win the war, or I would just wallow in my grief forever. And since I already felt like I had nothing left to lose, I broke out my grimoire at last.”

“Up until then, we had been using a number of different books I had packed in my bag, but I had never needed to really break it out, since we had most of the relevant books on hand, from Dumbledore or from our personal collections. I started by flipping through the high magic sections, looking for every ward and defensive spell I could find. The very first thing I cast from it was the Prismatic Ward, which is a defensive spell rarely used, due to its indiscriminate nature towards any who touch it, and how its conspicuous light pattern is almost hypnotic in its appeal. We split our time then, Harry and I, between the grimoire and the rest of the reference books we had. One of us would read through the grimoire, while the other worked on whatever else was available.”

_Hermione was sitting at the table in the tent, three separate reference books open in front of her. She wasn't reading them, exactly, so much as scanning for relevant sections and cross referencing material between them. Across from her sat Harry, her grimoire open in front of her. She always felt a bit silly referring to it as that, when it was just a book, but the effort she had put into crafting the magic on it, the time it had taken her to assemble the information to store within it, made it take on more significance, and she had started to call it that in her mind during the construction and she had found that it just ... stuck._

_He seemed to be having much less luck than her, however, judging by the way that he was flipping through the pages, frustrated, barely pausing to read anything. Harry had always learned better from practicing rather than studying, so while he was still able to learn some of the combat spells she had placed in there, many of them required practice targets - either living individuals you didn't mind testing curses on, or large open areas for the more expansive spells - that they didn't have access to. Even if they were willing to test those curses on each other, it would require both of them, and therefore slow down their research. And though the tent itself and the immediate outside had been warded to a fare-thee-well by Hermione when she first cracked her grimoire open, and they could practice magic inside safely, they couldn't do so outside the ward boundaries, which meant the area effect spells were also off limits._

_Harry suddenly sat upright, stopping his rapid churn through the book to read a specific page intently. A few moments later he looked up at her and spoke, the first time they had broken their silence in hours._

_"Hermione," he said with excitement, and she looked up. "I found something in here, something useful. This ritual-"_

_With that final word, she quickly reached across the table and pulled the grimoire in front of her. She had put a number of rituals in there, and all of them were both extremely powerful and extremely dangerous. Quickly scanning the page he was on, she paled._

_"Harry, did you read this all the way through? I never intended for us to_ use _this, I only put it in here for reference, because it was soul related magic, and could help us with the Horcruces. The consequences of this are ... dire."_

_"Yeah, I read it all the way through, twice. I might not have understood all the words, exactly, but I got the gist of it. This lets us bond our souls, it's right in the name. And it could do so much for us! It says it lets us 'fight as one', it would help us if we ever got separated, and those are just the two 'most well defined benefits' to it."_

_His flippant attitude towards the ritual was beginning to scare Hermione. Clearly, he hadn't thought through what would happen were they to perform it, he couldn't have with that attitude_

_"But if we aren't in close enough alignment to begin with, we could just die outright during the ritual!"_

_"But it covers that!” Harry spun the grimoire back around to his side of the table, gesturing to a paragraph halfway down the page. “The participants back then, in Egypt, had to spend years training with each other to determine if they were compatible. And though that may not have been our intention, we certainly have spent years training with each other. After all this time, do you really think we aren't compatible enough to make this work?"_

_Hermione frowned as he shot down her first argument. However, she had plenty of other objections she could raise._

_"Fine, I'll grant you that we could pull it off, but the benefits don't outweigh the risks! Yes, the list of advantages it would give us quite enticing, but the disadvantages ... you said you read it all the way through. Don't you get that if one of us dies, the other will drop dead instantly?"_

_"Is this about the prophecy? I've turned the words over and over in my head since I first learned them, and you're far more brilliant than I am. If I could figure out that it might mean that both 'the Dark Lord' and 'the one with the power to vanquish him' might both die in the end to fulfill it, 'neither of us living', surely you must have too. Is that what you're worried about? That I'll die fulfilling it, and you'll die with me?"_

_Harry looked defeated then, and though it would win her the argument, Hermione couldn't let him think that, not when he had finally given voice to the silent fear that had haunted them both for over a year._

_"No!" She shouted, before her voice turned quieter to repeat the negation. "No. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm worried something will happen to me, that I'll be too slow, that I won't be smart enough, that I will fail you when it counts, and I will take you down with me."_

_She could only reward his honesty with her own, speaking aloud the fear she had held within her since she first got her friends in that girls' bathroom above a troll all those years ago, the fear she had faced in their third year Defense final that she had not been able to overcome then. But Harry responded to her fear with his own reassurance._

_"I wouldn't last a day without you. And not just because you're the most brilliant person I know, and the best hope we have of getting through this is with your mind. It's because you're the only one I have left. No, it's not that you're the only one left, its that you're the only one who_ never _left. Ron is a good friend, but every time, he hasn't been there with me. It wasn't just now when he left us. Back during the Tournament, he abandoned me because he was jealous. You though, you have always been by my side, you are the only one who's never left me. Without you ... I wouldn't be strong enough to get through this."_

_"Besides, Hermione, be honest," Harry said, his voice turning somber. "We're already in too deep. It's just the two of us now, and I think we both know that if something were to happen to one of us, the only thing that would stop the other one from rescuing them, from helping them would be death. And if one of us died, the other would be right where we always are – a half step behind each other."_

_"You shouldn't talk like that, Harry," Hermione chided gently, her heart not really in it. "This mission is more important than either of us, we have to find a way to stop him."_

_She then grew serious again. "But even if this risk is acceptable, which I'm still not sold on, that's overlooking the most serious concern."_

_It was Hermione's turn to tap her finger on a paragraph in the grimoire, as she quoted the section that had her most worried._

_"Those bonded become as one, in all aspects; action, thought, and emotion. They become entwined, and what one feels, both experience," Hermione recited, before turning her eyes back on Harry. "This would rule out any chance either of us would have at having a romantic relationship with anyone else, ever. This is a massive commitment. This can't be undone, Harry. Marriage bonds can be broken. This? Can't."_

_"Hermione," Harry said, sadly. "You said it yourself. The mission is more important. None of that matters if we don't win this war. If we don't win, then neither of us will be alive to have any relationships anyway."_

_"I liked Ginny," he said, averting his eyes from hers, sitting down on the couch behind him, in order to confess his feelings. "I may have loved her, I'm not sure. I've definitely never thought of you that way; I haven't let myself. I needed you too much to ever risk thinking like that. Not just your mind, but that you always stuck with me, no matter what."_

_Hermione debated speaking up then, letting him know that this ritual wasn't needed to get her to stick with him, but the words got caught in her throat as she choked up, tears starting to run down her face at his confession._

_"I can't promise you I ever will love you," Harry said, his voice turning stronger, as he met her eyes once more. "But I can promise you that ..." He trailed off, searching for the right words._

_"When we had career counseling back in fifth year, I said I wanted to be an Auror because I couldn't see beyond this fighting. Last year, I just wanted to be normal. I dated Ginny because it was the normal thing to do, and I wanted to not have to think about being the Chosen One for once. But when I thought about having a future with her, I just couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine any future at all."_

_He took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he had to say next. "It's like this whole war is this wall, and I can't see past it. I know I'm supposed to know what I want to do with my life, that I should at least know that, but I just can't imagine any future for myself beyond the fighting. I don't know what I want. But spending the rest of my life with you by my side? That doesn't sound so bad."_

_Hermione's heart broke a little, hearing his confession. Between his sheltered and abusive upbringing, the alternating idolatry and contempt the rest of the Wizarding World held him in, and that never to be sufficiently cursed prophecy, Harry couldn't even realize just how normal he actually was in his uncertainty, that it wasn't a failing. He couldn't realize that what he was describing_ was _love, not necessarily the romantic kind, but deep and lasting._

_"No, it doesn't," Hermione said, and as the words came out of her mouth, she realized she was actually considering this insane suggestion. She moved around the table to sit next to him on the couch and take his hand._

_"Are you sure about this, Harry? If we're going to do this, you have to be positive. I know you like keeping things buttoned up in here," she said, tapping his forehead. "But if we go through with this ... there won't be any secrets you can keep from me. I'll be inside your head, and you inside mine. Are you really sure you want that?"_

_As she spoke, he shyly tilted his head up to look at her. "Does that mean you're actually considering it?" he asked her, his voice soft._

_"Help me, I am," she said, humorous exasperation coloring her voice, succeeding in getting Harry to crack a smile for the first time in the conversation. "It's still a terrible idea, for anyone to do. A terrible choice to make. But if you're sure this is what you want, you've convinced me it could be worth it. So? Are you sure?"_

_"I'm positive, Hermione," he said. "I know it sounds crazy, but I just have this ... feeling. Like this is the right choice to make. We've been sitting here in this tent, not getting anywhere, and none of the things we have considered, about how to destroy the Horcruces, how to find them, none of the ideas we've had has felt_ right _. And not just since Ron left, we've been stuck for months now, not making progress on any front. But this, this feels like the right path."_

_Hermione squeezed his hand, and started to think about the necessary preparation for the ritual, when, all of a sudden, a memory of something she had overheard at a wedding when she was a little girl sprung into her mind that seemed appropriate to the situation._

_"Wherever you go, I'll go with you."_

"So there you have it," Hermione explained, to Ginny's stunned look. Hermione herself was focusing on the path ahead of them, only daring to look at the redhead through her peripheral vision. Everything she had explained until then had been the easy part, setting the background for what happened in the tent. That final piece of the puzzle was the one that revealed everything, what they had done. She looked vulnerable at having revealed such an intimate - not romantic, not as such, but certainly private - moment.

"The soul bond isn't - I don't know what you think a soul bond is, but whatever you do, it almost assuredly isn't that,” Hermione seemed to sense Ginny's unease, and her processing of the situation, and filled the awkward silence with more details, waiting for her to react. “Bond was the word they chose when they first translated the concept into English, all those generations ago, but nowadays, if I were to do so, it's not the word I would choose. Blending might be the word I choose; it's more accurate. A melding together, perhaps? A fusion?"

"Traits that we both had before it happened were amplified by their shared nature. Traits that only one of us had ... became weaker, or disappeared. Usually. Especially if the other had a trait that was diametrically opposed. But sometimes, they became shared between us instead. All told, our personalities merged together, becoming the next best thing to indistinguishable - we still have some individualism, but overall, ... we are much more similar people than we were before. If you present us both with a choice, we will choose the same thing now, every time."

"For example, we were both sorted into Gryffindor for our courage - which has only reinforced itself between us. Harry was always somewhat studious - not as much as me, no, but more than Ron ever was on his best days. Now, he's willing and able to spend hours researching and working without pause. He's been learning and retaining information faster and better too - after the bond, as we went studied and researched in the tent, he started picking up spells faster, and was able to recall information more readily. On the other hand, my fear of heights didn't diminish his love of flying even a little - but was in turn completely obliterated. I can get on brooms now, without a second thought."

"We don't share each others' thoughts though - we're not telepathic. We are empathic however - I know exactly what Harry's feeling, and he, I. Between that empathic sense, and the way our personalities have blurred together, we sometimes can appear like we can read each others' minds. We can also sense each other, as if we are extensions of our body - proprioception, as the Muggles call it. Even if we hadn't just left him in your house, I could tell you he's right there," Hermione said, pointing with her finger at a specific corner of the house. "Based on what I know about the layout of your living room, and what I can feel of his emotions, he's playing chess against Ron still. Losing too, despite genuinely trying to win. That's one of the traits that's stronger in Harry now - between both our competitive urges, and my concentration and reasoning, he's gotten a lot better at chess since the bond, and cares more about winning too. Ron's loving it, since it means stiffer competition, but we're catching up to his ability. Slowly, but still."

"That kinesthetic awareness of each other means that we can move more smoothly around each other. That's what you saw at dinner. The emotional channel between us let Harry know I didn't like the taste of my food, and that I was looking for pepper, specifically. The kinesthesis is how he was able to pass it over without either of us looking at each other - we just knew where the others' hands were, at that distance."

"It's only a useful party trick now, but that was one of the main reasons we went through with the bond in the first place. When we were fighting during the war, it meant that we could move around each in a way that other pairs take years, decades to develop, that we could shield and attack around each other with ease. No miscommunication, sometimes not even a need for verbal communication what with the emotional resonance. The proprioception also means that the two of us can always apparate to the other's location, blind. No matter the distance or how cramped the space is, we can always target each other."

"On the other hand, there is one big disadvantage. Well, aside from – I don't know what your philosophy is, Ginny. But I believed that a person is not this,” Hermione waved her hand over her body, before tapping on her forehead. “But this. Changing a person's mind, rewriting their personality like we did – to me, to who I was before, that ritual was the equivalent of killing us both and replacing us with two mostly similar people. But the real downside? It doesn't matter what word you want to use to describe it - bond, blend, merger, fusion. A rose by any other name, after all. Before, we were two separate people; two bodies, two souls. Now, now we only have the one soul, shared between us. Bigger, and brighter than either of ours was before, but still singular. If one of us were to die ... the other would as well."

"What happened when Ron got back," Ginny finally found herself asking, her voice flat, starting to find herself capable of reasoning again.

"We told him, of course," Hermione said, once again looking at Ginny. "We wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret; not in such close quarters, not from him. But we didn't want to. He had left us, and we both felt betrayed by that - he left us - but despite that, he has been our best friend since we were eleven, since we first began at Hogwarts. It was ... tense, when we first told him. He didn't take it very well. But eventually he came to terms with it, and was okay with it."

"Have you told anyone else?" Ginny asked, expecting the answer to be in the negative. She hadn't heard any hint, any rumor from any of their other friends since the two of them and Ron had resurfaced for the final battle.

"Well, we told Neville," Hermione admitted.

"What?" Ginny asked, shocked. "Why?"

"We had to," Hermione said, sounding somewhat embarrassed. "He was there when I died."

_Hermione raced down the corridors, flying back towards the rest of the students and teachers in the Great Hall, tears flowing down her face. The damage the castle had sustained so far over the course of the night had knocked out the direct route, forcing her to weave her way back and forth, up and down staircases, to wend her way through the ruined sections through the only passable route._

_At the same time, she felt Harry move away from where the two of them had been in Dumbledore's office, travelling in the opposite direction - outside, across the grounds, into the Forest. But where Hermione's route took her towards safety, his carried him to doom._

_Suddenly, she heard footsteps from up ahead, right as she approached a corner. She raised her wand, starting to trace through an offensive spell, as the people she heard came into view, and she relaxed at seeing Ron and Neville._

_"Oh thank god," she said, flinging herself forward and hugging them both. "we were worried I wouldn't make it back in time - we're running so very short."_

_"For V-Voldemort's ultimatum?" Ron asked. "We should make it back to the Hall easily before his time runs out."_

_"Wait," Neville interrupted. "What do you mean we? Wasn't Harry with you? Where did he go?"_

_At his questions, Ron's eyes focused back on Hermione, searching for something there that he evidently found._

_"He didn't," Ron said, and his tone made it clear that it wasn't a question, that he already knew what Harry had done. "That'll kill you both!"_

_"He did," Hermione said, and the lack of sadness but resolve in her tone stunned both boys slightly. "It was the only way - Snape left some memories behind, as he died, for us. We went up to Dumbledore's office to see them in the Pensieve, and - it confirmed what we had suspicions about for a while. That night, that Halloween - when Riddle tried to kill Harry, he was planning to make a Horcrux from it, and it ... rebounded somehow, anchoring in Harry himself."_

_"Horcrux?" Neville asked, confusion plain on his face._

_"There's no time to explain them properly, Neville, they're ... soul anchors. They keep Riddle from dying, truly. And one is in Harry. That's what we've been doing all year," Hermione gestured to Ron as she frantically spoke. "All three of us. We destroyed the rest, we thought there was only one left – it's Nagini, his pet snake. But there are two, one in Harry also. It's up to you now, the two of you - you have to kill the snake. And then Riddle. But the snake comes first or this nightmare will never end."_

_As she got the most critical information across to another soul, someone else who could be trusted to finish the job, she sent a flare of relief and accomplishment across to Harry, and was surprised to feel a similar emotion in response. Both relief and accomplishment, but not in echo of hers, an entirely different situation. It was ... the sensation of solving a puzzle? The feeling of eureka?_

_She didn't have time to dwell on it though, as Neville finally processed the information she had rapidly given him._

_"What do you mean it's up to us now - where will you be? Wait, what did Ron mean when he said that Harry's going out there would kill you both?" Neville asked her, seeming to suspect the general shape of the answer, even if he wasn't sure what it was exactly. "Hermione?"_

_"We bound ourselves, Neville," Hermione stated. She reached out towards Ron, grabbing his arm for support, not physical but emotional, as she told one of their closest friends what she and Harry had inflicted upon themselves. "Our souls. It was an ancient ritual - not one anyone should be using, but we didn't think we had many options at the time. The situation was dire, and anything that could gives us an advantage, we had to take. And the advantages are great - even now, I can tell you that Harry is already inside the Forest, that he's closing in on their camp. That he's tired and hurt, but still able to fight. Without it, we probably wouldn't have made it this far. But the downside - oh, the downside. We're tied together - where one of us goes, we both go. Harry dies - I die."_

_As her explanation struck home, Neville flinched, before lunging forward and engulfing her in a hug himself. Hermione found herself hugging him back, the gratitude towards their friend echoing both from herself and from Harry. Finally, he released her, mostly, still holding her arm._

_"That's why we needed to find you. To let someone know why Harry had gone into the forest. The others, they might think that without Harry, the battle is lost. But it's just the opposite. Without us, you have a chance to win. This is it, the prophecy will finally be complete after we're done, and Riddle will be vulnerable. You just have to kill the snake."_

_And, then, before she could say anything else, she felt Harry's emotions flare up in a scramble pattern, and she knew her time was up. She quickly clenched down with her fists on both of her boys' arms, to let them know nonverbally what she no longer had time to say._

_Hermione felt the breath knocked out of her._


	3. Chapter 3

“You … you died?” Ginny asked, her voice quaking slightly.

Night had fallen fully now, the only light illuminating them the stars and the moon. Ginny had considered pulling out her wand to light their way, but something of Hermione's story seemed to be easier to hear, easier for her to tell in the dark. Ginny shivered, the terror at her friends' apparent deaths combining with the cold summer night.

“I got better,” Hermione said, her lips turning up in that slight quirk that Ginny had learned to recognize as the older girl making a joke that required knowledge of the Muggle world.

_Hermione felt the breath knocked back into her._

_All of her aches and assorted injuries from the battle were wearing on her, the pain letting her know that she was once again truly alive. An unnatural stillness still spread through her body though, and she knew that she could remain there, as motionless as if she were still dead, if she so desired. However, one thought instantly passed through her mind, and she sprung up, sitting up fully in an instant._

_"Harry!" she exclaimed, and above her, Ron and Neville were stunned into silence from the argument they had been having. Both boys looked stunned at her sudden revivification, unmoving. Hermione started to scramble up to her feet, but was slowed by the pain coursing through her body. Though it had only been a few moments since she had died, the pain seemed much worse, the reprieve she had been granted from it forcing her to catalog it all. It wasn't until she looked up at Ron, and reached her hand up towards him, that he was able to start moving again, grasping her hand and helping her stand up._

_"Hermione, Bu-, Wha-," Neville stammered out, pale, as if he was seeing a ghost._

_"Quickly, we need to get out to the Forest, Harry's alive again, but he's outnumbered drastically, and he ... will ... need," Hermione slowly trailed off as she started to filter through what Harry was feeling. Nervousness, the tension of being ready to act, fading into relief and patience. "Nevermind, he's fine. He - he's safe? He's playing possum. They think he's still dead, for some reason."_

_The emotional channel between them was not precise, but a surprising amount could still be communicated through it, even if it took a few attempts sometimes. Ron just nodded, used to their use of it by now, but Neville looked skeptical, still adjusting to their entwined self. As she worked through what was happening outside the boundary of the castle, she sensed Harry slowly begin to move towards her._

_"They're coming back here. They're ... carrying him. To show us his body, try to demoralize us when the fighting starts again."_

_"Come on then," Ron said, and started them walking back towards the Great Hall. "We need to let the others know the fight isn't lost yet, the battle's just beginning."_

_"So what's the plan then?" Neville asked, as he hurried to catch up with the other two._

_"The plan hasn't changed," Hermione said. "We need to kill Nagini, then we can kill Riddle."_

_"I'll do it," Hermione finished, sending a blast of resolve over to Harry, along with her idea._

_"Umm, Hermione," Neville began hesitantly. "I don't know what happened just now, or how you're back, but I'm guessing it's not something you can repeat? If something happens to you, then you're dead for good?"_

_"It needs to be done," Hermione said sharply. "And who better to do it than me? This is our job, Harry's and mine. And he'll be too busy dealing with Riddle himself."_

_"Except, if you go down, then won't Harry be dead too? Shouldn't it be one of us, then? Besides," Neville continued, building up steam. "V-Voldemort knows all the spells we do. He can block or shield against any of them. The only way to hit him will be for someone he isn't expecting to attack him. He won't let his guard down against any of us - but if they're bringing Harry back with them, then he'll be able to connect through. It'll be the one thing that Vol-Voldemort isn't expecting. But Harry can't if the two of you are dead, if he kills you for attacking Nagini. It's a suicide job."_

_Neville darted forward from them a few steps, planting himself squarely in the corridor ahead of Hermione and Ron. "I'll do it. I'll take care of the snake. Right before you d-died, you said this was my job now. I'll kill the snake ... and then you and Harry can kill Voldemort."_

_Hermione froze. Ever since they had come back to life, Harry had had to mute himself, to avoid giving away any sign that he was still alive, lest the Death Eaters realize and allow Riddle to finish the job. As a result, Hermione had been forced to bear the brunt of both their emotions, feeling double. Combined with the shock that the vividness of sensation from the world around them after not feeling anything had left her in, she was barely able to function enough to do what needed doing. Neville's declaration, the first time he had ever said the name without stuttering, left her bowled over, frozen in place._

_"You -" she started to say, punctuating each word by pounding her finger into his chest. "You - bloody - idiotic - suicidal - reckless - brave -_ Gryffindor _!"_

_With the final word, her tears burst forth in a flood, and she wrapped him in a massive hug. Both herself and Harry were stunned at the loyalty and bravery of their longtime friend, who they had once dismissed as the most timid of all of them. "Why can you only ever stand up for yourself when you're standing against your friends?"_

_Neville stood stunned, unsure what to do at her display of emotion. He gently patted her on the back, looking towards Ron for help. Ron could only chuckle weakly._

_"To be fair to Nev, you're a lot scarier than old Voldemort," Ron joked weakly. Hermione hiccuped a wet laugh through her tears, and reached out blindly, grabbing Ron and pulling him into the hug as well. The three remained there for a minute, before Hermione finally released the two boys._

_"Alright Neville," she said. "You win. You kill the snake. Then Harry and I will finish the job."_

"Wait," Ginny said, her righteous indignation building within her once again. "So Neville knows as well as Ron. Who else knows? Luna?"

Hermione had to quell the retort she had already been preparing to voice at the mention of the name, and winced. "Neither of us has told Luna anything, but ... Well, it's Luna. Based on the things she's said, and how she's acted around us since we saw each other again ... we think she knows already. Somehow."

"Really?" Ginny asked, the anger beginning to boil over. "Am I seriously the last one to be told?"

"Yes," Hermione's instant answer, delivered calmly and with certainty, knocked a hole in the cauldron of Ginny's rage.

"Wha-" Ginny began to speak. "What does that mean?! Is that how little you think of me, that you told everyone else before me?"

Hermione hmmed to herself, and took a moment to gather her thoughts. "That's certainly one way to look at it. But it's not how we see it."

Her continued use of the plural pronoun was driving Ginny up the wall. Before she could voice her anger, Hermione continued speaking.

"You may be the last of our friends to find out, but that's not because of how little regard we have for you. Ron needed to know, being out there with us, and he's been with us the longest of any of you. He deserved to know first. After him, Neville only found out because I died right in front of him. And we still don't technically know if Luna knows, since we've never asked her outright - and if she does, it's not because we told her, but because she figured it out, the same as you did tonight. All that aside, however?"

"What I said before, I meant literally. You are the last one to be told. Well, depending on how you count Luna. We're not telling anyone else. We love your family - Molly and Arthur have been like another set of parents to both of us, and all your brothers are amazing. The rest of the Order fought and bled more than anyone else, our other friends from school went above and beyond what should ever be expected of children. All of them, we care for. But none of them have been there for us, through everything, the way the four of you have. When we went to the Ministry, to the Department of Mysteries, it was you, Ron, Neville, and Luna. You were the four who came with us. You're the only ones we're telling, none of the rest."

"And if someone like Rita Skeeter were to figure it out, the way you did, the way Luna might have?" Hermione continued to speak. "We wouldn't tell her anything. The rest of the Wizarding World - we have done so much, sacrificed so much of ourselves for them. To stop Riddle, to save them all. And we did it gladly. But this one thing? It's private, personal. It's none of their business."

The two girls had stopped walking, standing near the edge of the orchard behind the house, having walked all the way around the edge of the property several times over during the course of their discussion. Hermione faced Ginny, the intense look on her face barely visible in the moon and star light.

"The way we see it? We are only telling the people we trust, who we think deserve to know the truth. And to us, the order they are told in, isn't as important as the fact that we trust them enough to tell them at all. I understand why you might be angry now. If I thought someone was keeping secrets from us, I would be upset too. But at the end of the day, you're our friend. One of our best friends. We want nothing more than for you to be happy – and happy for us. And though it was a terrible choice we made, it was our choice. And we're happy with it now. We both are."

Hermione's speech flushed the rest of the anger from Ginny's system, leaving her feeling hollow, and a little ashamed instead.

"If you need proof, you can see it in our eyes," Hermione finished her speech, turning away from Ginny at last to face towards the porch behind the kitchen. Ginny's eyes began tracking where hers were looking, and at the moment they both had turned their heads in that direction, a faint light came on on the porch. Harry stood there, arm held aloft, a lumos lighting the tip of his wand and their path back towards the house, his other arm down by his side, holding Hermione's jacket. As they walked up, Ginny didn't have any option but to see the look of sheer contentment on his face at Hermione's approach.

When they reached the house, Ginny quickly shrugged out of her jacket and ran up the stairs to her room for some time alone to think. It had been a whirlwind of an evening. She had known that Harry and Hermione had always been close, and that after the end of the war they had been closer than ever. But whatever she had been expecting the older girl to say, Hermione had been right (she had an aggravating habit of always being right) that it was completely different than what had actually happened. She quickly fell asleep, the conversation they had had leaving her so emotionally drained it tired her out physically.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Hermione shrugged her coat on, and stopped by the living room to speak to Ron in soft tones for a few minutes, while Harry made the rounds of the house, saying goodbye to the rest of the Weasleys, and gathering his own jacket. Then the two left, together, as in everything they did now.

They walked in companionable silence up the path towards the ward line, where they could apparate back to the flat in Muggle London that Harry had rented and they had been sharing over the summer. Finally, Harry broke the silence.

"So, you told her everything?" he asked.

A burst of mirth and mischievousness flashed across their bond from Hermione. Despite their lack of speech, they had, as always, been in constant communication.

"Well," she said, those same emotions in the grin toying with her face. "Not _quite_ everything."


	4. Postlude: Don't Know Where, Don't Know When

_Hermione suddenly found herself in King's Cross Station. She had felt none of the usual hallmarks of any kind of magical transportation. And as she took further stock of her situation, she realized that she wasn't in any pain. All the minor injuries she had picked up during the battle thus far had disappeared, leaving her in perfect condition. Even the residual ache from the scar she had picked up in the Department of Mysteries was gone. She didn't feel good, not as an active condition; she simply felt nothing. Nothing wrong with her, for the first time in what felt like ever; certainly the last two years. She hadn't even realized how weary and tired she was from months on the run, eating poorly, until she was no longer feeling the effects._

_Turning around slowly, scanning for threats, she took in how barren the station was. There was, with a single exception, no one else present. Every other time she had been here, the station had been bustling with people and motion, and to see it so empty was strange. Her eyes settled on the only other figures visible; two men, both instantly recognizable to her, sitting on a bench across the platform from her._

_Seeing Dumbledore caused her to realize where she actually was; the afterlife. So there is one, she thought, suppose that answers that question. As she was about to call out to Harry, however, she startled in shock at a voice coming from right behind her._

_"It should be me over there, you know," the obviously feminine voice said._

_Hermione whirled around, reflexively reaching for her wand before the figure that had appeared behind her registered in her mind._

_"Miss - Mrs. Potter?" She asked, frozen halfway through tracing out a spell pattern, the shock stunning her into inaction; the first time she had frozen since the end of her fifth year._

_"Lily," the redheaded woman said, gently, so, so softly, but with a core of steel. "I willingly tied my life to my son's with magic, to protect him, knowing what it could, would, cost me. As the only other woman to do so, you have more than earned the right to be on a first name basis with me."_

_She gestured behind them, at the bench against the wall, before sitting down, the motion finally allowing Hermione to resume moving and sit down herself._

_"By all rights, it should be me to talk to my son," Mrs. Potter - Lily - repeated herself, gesturing at the two men mirroring their pose across the station. "But if I were to be the one to speak to him, he wouldn't be able to make the choice that he has to. Not objectively."_

_"What choice?" Hermione found herself asking, even as her mind raced. "This is the afterlife, isn't it? We're dead?"_

_"We're not in the afterlife, not exactly," Lily explained. "We're more in, hmm, a halfway point. From here you can go forward ... or you can go back." As she spoke, Lily gestured towards the train tracks that stretched off in each direction._

_"The Horcrux," Hermione stated, mind seeing the solution. "It anchored Riddle's soul to Harry, but also vice versa."_

_"Partly. All soul magics are complex, and poorly understood. Combining them can have -"_

_"- unforeseeable interactions," Hermione finished, in sync with the older woman._

_"Exactly," Lily continued, a smile playing across her face. "When Harry was struck with the killing curse in the forest," and Hermione startled slightly, at the confirmation of what had happened while she was speaking with Ron and Neville, "There were several magics at play. My original protection that I placed on Harry, seventeen years ago; the unintended Horcrux that was placed in him that same night; the soul bond that you and Harry created, several months ago; and the fact that Harry was recognized by magic by all three Hallows."_

_"What?" Hermione asked in shock, before realizing, "That flash of insight and relief that Harry felt a few minutes ago, he found the last Hallow, the ring. It must have been ... in the Snitch?" she half asked, half stated, her eyes flicking across to the man who had willed the piece of Quidditch equipment to Harry. Lily simply nodded at her deduction._

_"Wait, you said there was a choice," Hermione continued. "So we can either continue on, to actual death ... or return to the living."_

_"When Harry's soul should have moved on, where anyone else's soul would have, all those soul magics at once, they tied his soul back. It's impossible to tell which of them specifically it was, if it wasn't the combined effect of all of them together. But they pulled you forward with Harry - and placed you both on the knife's edge," Lily said, making significant eye contact with Hermione._

_"We're balanced, he and I, between life and death. Perfectly so. It's up to us which way we go, we can force ourselves one way or the other."_

_Lily nodded, beaming at Hermione. "And if I were the one to be speaking to my son ..." she said, before trailing off._

_Hermione understood instantly. "We've done our part - the actual battle still has yet to take place, but all the parts that only we could accomplish are finished. Our friends can finish the fight. Whichever way he goes, I go with him, so he knows he'll have me by his side whatever he chooses. But on this side ... he would have you. And his father, and Sirius – and the pain is gone. Our work could be done."_

_Lily nodded again, her smile still present at Hermione's reasoning, but grimmer now._

_"My son never had to do anything to earn my love. And even if this is when he truly dies, I will be so, so proud of everything he has done, the man he has grown to be," Lily stated. "But ..."_

_Hermione was staring at Lily, as it was now her turn to look across the station to where Harry was talking to Dumbledore, a wistful expression on her face._

_"But," Lily finally continued, "I wanted more for him. I wanted more for myself, for that matter, I never wanted to die this young. I was willing to, to save him. But of all the ways he could follow in James' and my footsteps, this was not the path I wanted for him. I don't want him to die even younger than I did."_

_Hermione looked at the older woman then, really looked. Dumbledore had appeared exactly as she remembered him from a year ago when he was still alive; she knew from her own examination of herself that, aside from her injuries disappearing, she was exactly as she had been mere minutes ago. She had extrapolated that in this in between place, people appeared as they were when they died. It was easy to know, in her head, that Lily and her husband had died almost two decades ago, that they had been young when they died. But it wasn't until now, really taking in her appearance that she realized the redheaded woman was almost the same age she was, that she had lived only a scant few years more._

_"Whichever way he goes, I go with him," Hermione repeated, the words having an entirely different meaning now, a vow this time. "And -"_

_Hermione paused, trying to find the right words, before continuing. "Lily," she said placing careful intent behind the other woman's name, finally calling her as she had been told she could. "I won't force him to go back. All the things I've dragged him into over the years, all the things he has had forced on him, I won't take this choice, this one choice, away from him. We are at peace here; our work could be over. But if he_ does _choose for us to go back ..."_

_She trailed off, not needing to speak the words, not able even to find the words to cover the enormity of what she was promising._

_"I couldn't have picked a better person for him to spend the rest of his life with if I had been alive to choose, Hermione," Lily said. "I know it's not my place, but I'm not just proud of him - I'm proud of you too. I'm sure your parents would be as well."_

_Something in the air around them changed then, and Hermione looked across the station at where Harry still was, and she knew that he had made his choice. Looking back over at Lily it seemed she sensed it as well._

_"Tell him that we love him so very much, James and I both, and that we're so proud of him. We will be so happy the day that we get to see him again. But he better live to be at least five times as old as we were, because if that day comes any sooner - well, you can't kill people from the afterlife, but I can be very creative when I need to be, and he shouldn't test me."_

_Lily paused for only a moment, her and Hermione both knowing that their time together was almost over, and every second was a chance to say something. "Take care of each other. Make each other happy. That's all that we need."_

_As the world around them faded out, and gradually disappeared, Hermione said one last goodbye._

_"We will, Lily."_

_And all Hermione knew was white._

_"We'll meet again."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a writing device, I hate soul bonds. At best, they are a sophomoric way to skip all the character development and plot involved in getting two characters together in order to jump them straight from acquaintances/friends to lovers/married. At worst, they are an attempt to weaponize not even canon but fanon in order to win the shipping wars.  
> Naturally, I challenged myself to write a soul bond story.  
> It was important to me that the soul bond didn't take away their agency; that it was a choice they actively made, rather than something that passively happened to them. That it was something they did to themselves (hence the title).
> 
> The title of this story was inspired by the Elementary season 1 episode of the same name.  
> Referring to space bending magics as claudications and emboîtements comes from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series and Dr. Who.  
> Hermione's Prismatic Ward spell will probably be familiar to most players of Dungeons and Dragons.  
> The wedding blessing that Hermione repeats throughout the story is a paraphrasing of Ruth 1:16.  
> Hermione's Muggle reference at the start of chapter 3 is a quote from Monty Python And the Holy Grail. The actual words she says are spoken during the witch trial scene, but she's thinking more of the "bring out your dead" scene.  
> The title of the postlude is both a reference to the ethereal, timeless nature of the between life and death setting, as well as a line from the Vera Lynn song which shares a title with the last line of the scene.


End file.
